1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to liquid ejecting apparatuses, liquid ejection methods, and printing systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Inkjet printers in which piezo elements are driven to eject ink onto paper are known. Such inkjet printers are provided with a drive signal generator that generates ejection drive signals for driving the piezo elements to cause the ejection of ink.
When an inkjet printer performs printing continuously, the drive signal generator becomes hot. When the temperature of the drive signal generator becomes elevated due to this heat, there is a possibility that the inkjet printer will break down.
Accordingly, the approach of temporarily halting the generation of ejection drive signals from the drive signal generator has been proposed (see, for example, JP 2003-72058A).
However, if the drive signal generator is configured to generate a plurality of types of ejection drive signals, then the amount of power that is consumed differs depending on the type of the ejection drive signal. Therefore, if the printer performs standby (temporary halting) in the same way for each type of ejection drive signal, then the printing speed will drop. On the other hand, adopting components to keep the printing speed from dropping increases costs. Moreover, this problem is not limited to printers, and can occur with any liquid ejecting apparatus that employs inkjet technology.